“It is your own observation that God does all in wisdom; in this wisdom he is pleased to lengthen your day of affliction.  Sin, my darling, is the cause of all suffering; but is not always the immediate cause.  Besides particular chastisement for particular sins, there are afflictions to be filled up in the body of Christ—­his church—­a measure of which, in kind and degree, is appointed by unerring wisdom to each individual member.  Col. 1:24.  These sufferings bear no part in atoning for sin, nor in redeeming our forfeited inheritance.  Christ trod the wine-press alone, and of the people there was none to help him.  He was made sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him; who when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.  Heb. 1:3.  Again, ‘And every priest,’ in the Levitical law, ’standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins:  but this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God.  For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.  Whereof the Holy Ghost is also a witness to us; for after he had said before’—­see from verse 5—­’This is the covenant which I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them; and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.  Now, where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin.’  Heb. 10:11-18.  Paul says the Holy Ghost is a witness, because he copies from the ancient Scriptures the prophecies of Jer. 31:31, and Ezek. 36:25, and from Psalm 60:7.  Your mother will read to you also the eighth chapter of Hebrews, containing the same things, the new covenant, in consequence of Christ, as the surety of sinners, having made full atonement, magnified the law, and made it honorable; therefore there is now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus.

“It has pleased God, my darling, in the adorable plan of reconciling sinners to himself by Jesus Christ, to perfect at once a justifying righteousness for them, and to bestow it upon them as a free gift.  ’This is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life; and this life is in his Son.’ 1 John, 5:11.  But it has not pleased him to deliver us at once from depravity; provision is made for final deliverance by the same covenant, and is effected by the same power:  but in this believers are called to work.  It is evident from Scripture, and the experience of Christians answers to it, that in the hour of believing they pass from death to life, considered as a state.  This is the hour of the new birth:  they then receive life for the time, and it is their privilege, by the constitution of the new covenant, to ask and receive, from day to day, grace to help in every time of need.  To them, and not to the unregenerate, the exhortation is addressed, ’Work